I believe that abortion is morally wrong in ALL cases except if the life of the mother is in danger.I think that an embryo is a human being the moment egg is fertilized.Therefore according to the Declaration of Independence all human beings are entitled to "life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness"( first paragraph).The reason that I believe that a child is human at the first stage of its life because it was created by human reproduction,The embryo contains human DNA the second the egg is fertilized and because it has the potential to become a fully grown human being.Also when a doctor performs an abortion he/she has broken the Hippocratic oath,because it says"I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and NEVER do harm to ANYONE(emphasis added).""Hippocratic oath

Should abortion be legal? Thank you for posting this question, I actually had conversation about this subject with my sister. I also believe that abortion is morally wrong, yet we live in a country that secures too many freedoms to take away abortion. If we take away the freedom for a woman to have an abortion, anyone can make the argument to take away any other freedoms. What if someone's religion is that you must have a male be your first born (which it is in some cultures). If abortion is illegal than that would contradict the 1st amendment in the constitution saying that we must have freedom of religion. If we don't have freedom of religion than what was the purpose of the founding of this country. Most of the people left Europe to the United States for freedom of religion. As much as I think abortion is a morally wrong thing, I don't get a say to what people have a right and wrong to do. People have to have their freedoms and without abortion, some might not get religious freedom.

Yes you are right in the sense of protecting rights,but if this religion you used as an example also required that the first born boy was used as a sacrifice that would naturally be illegal. Even though people have freedom in America there is a limitation. If the individual rights take away the rights of another person it is wrong. A good example is cannibalism (which still exists in some primitive cultures).Even though a cannibal has the freedom of religion it is not okay for them to eat someone in their religious ritual because it violates the rights of the person being eaten. In the same way the right for the baby as a human being to live overrides the right for the woman to do with her body what she pleases.

Who says an embryo gets rights? A child does not get rights until it is born. Instead of focusing so much on abortion we should instead focus in better methods of birth control for young teens to reduce the need for abortions. The decision to have an abortion is extremely private and difficult for most women and there is no place for law there. There are times such as rape, when women feel they need abortion. Sometimes the woman's life is at stake. The decision to have an abortion is much to personal for law to get involved. You can not put so many limitations on the rights of Americans. We need to put more emphasis on other options but abortion. Women can always discuss with their doctors to decide what they want to do. But abortion needs to be there to be a last option. Have you heard of the case Roe V. Wade in 1973? The Supreme Court decided that an embryo and a fetus do not have rights themselves. I know I am sounding pretty immoral right now, but abortion needs to be a last option

I believe the child (embryo) would disagree. You just admitted that the embryo is a child and therefore is human. As a human it is guaranteed the right to live. If a woman can decide who lives and dies in one case,why not in another situation. Should the mother be able to make that decision later in the child's life...of course not! So why is it okay for the child to be killed when he/she is still in the mother's womb,but it isn't okay when the child is five? As Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence "We hold these truths to be self evident that ALL men are created equal(emphasis added)."I think that abortion shouldn't be an option at all.

The Roe V. Wade case of 1973 still remains. An embryo should not get rights until it is born. An embryo can't disagree with me because it is not a child at that stage. Listen, abortion is going to happen. If we make it illegal, women are going to find ways to do it. Ways that are more difficult. Ways that might end up hurting women themselves. Most doctors say they have at least one patient, or know about someone, who has tried to end their pregnancy by themselves. They try things like mixing malt with aspirin or nutmeg, stuff like that. Some crazy people even try to fall down stairs or punch themselves. I we make abortion illegal, in some cases, it would lead to not only the embryo dying but could put the mother in a bad condition a well. Abortion should be discouraged, but it needs to be an option for women when they don't have any others.

Yes you are right when you say that if we make abortion illegal abortion will still happen. It is the same scenario with rape. Rape is illegal, but unfortunately people still rape. Does this mean that we should make it legal...of course not! About giving them an option;they do have an option called adoption. Just because someone made a mistake doesn't mean a innocent bystander has to be killed. Instead they should give the child to a family who is capable of caring for the child. Before you argue that a child can't think research the facts first,because according to www.scientificamerican.com,www smithsonian.com...etc a "fetus" can have brain activity as early as three months after contraception. That is SIX MONTHS before birth!

First off, rape is a totally different situation. Abortion is a very personal decision made by a women that she feels is correct a majority of the time. It is pretty difficult to compare rape and abortion. Lying to your parents under most circumstances is morally wrong, yet it is not illegal. See? You just can't compare things like that. Adoption is a great way if that is an option. What if a mother doesn't want her child and the mother shuns her child throughout her life and the child commits suicide. Then the child dies anyway. I understand that we gave the child a chance to live, but there are bad mothers out there that can make a child feel like crap, especially when a certain mother wanted to get rid of a certain child in the first place. Unwanted pregnancies cause unwanted children. Finally think about this. If a government is permitted to force a woman to bear a child where will the government stop? This violates nearly every traditional American ideal and value.

Alright I guess since con has forfeited this round and has not expanded on his argument, I win. But I will just sum up what I have to say.

I believe that abortion is morally wrong, but I don't think the government should be able to take away such personal and close rights to Americans no matter what. Taking away abortion would violate traditional American ideals and values, the basis that this country was built upon. Abortion needs to be discouraged, but when there are no other ways, abortion needs to be that last option. Basic Democracy ideals make it so abortion needs to stay in place and government should not get involved in such a personal decision.

My last message ran out of space before I finished my last comment, and then I ended up having to do other things for a while. So now:

"As far as contradictions? Again to look at your quote: "Who is best situated to determine whether or not a particular unborn human can be adequately supported? Certainly not any abortion opponent!"

Take that thought further...who is best situated? The mother or the father?"

I don't see any contradiction, unless you are assuming that the father opposes abortion while the mother wants one. But that is a special case, because by far the majority of abortion opponents are not so intimately involved in a particular woman's situation. Meanwhile, I suggest you look at item #40 of the linked Forum post ( http://www.debate.org... ). You will see that I am all-in-favor of the mother's decision, over the desires of the father.

To Racer_X, I grew up in an arguing (but seldom violent) family, and to argue trivial details is practically second nature to me. Anyway, it is perfectly obvious to me that if you exclude men from the Overall Abortion Debate, you limit the arguments to things that only women might think of. Hey, while half the brainpower of the human species resides in its women, the other half resides in its men, and it is generally unwise to arbitrarily declare it to be useless.

As I previously indicated, it is not always necessary to walk in someone else's shoes to notice whether or not some part of the language is being mis-used, propagandistically.

Also, it is not necessary to walk in someone else's shoes to notice that the ancient Religious mantra, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the Earth" has been DONE, and even over-done. For that reason alone, abortions should be allowed, whenever someone doesn't want to add extra mouths-to-feed to an overcrowded planet!

And it is not necessary to walk in someone else's shoes to detect Bad Logic. For example, consider the claim that unborn humans should be treated like persons because they have the potential to become persons. The logic is fatally flawed! Because, according to their own logic, all abortion opponents should be treated like corpses, right now, and be buried 6ft under, because they have the potential to become corpses.

Obviously if you CAN walk in someone else's shoes, you can construct arguments that can't be constructed by someone who doesn't so walk. All I'm saying is, do not limit your arguments unnecessarily.

For a simple explanation of why more men oppose abortion than women, just read a rather famous book, "The Selfish Gene", by Richard Dawkins. It may be a bit extreme to think that the purpose of each member of the human species is to pass his or her genes on, but there is an element of Truth to it. For males, that element of truth means it is beneficial to THEM to control/enslave females....

To elvroin_vonn_trazem that's what is frustrating. You are Pro Choice yet feel the need to argue with how the argument is made, It's this type of in-fighting that weakens most groups with a common agenda. It's agreed between us that women should have the choice and instead of working together for a common goal you decide to debate the argument regardless that it has the same goal.

I do stand by my previous comments that men do not belong in this debate. I shouldn't be able to dictate what another person does with their body ESPECIALLY if I will never be able to walk in their shoes. I will never know what it's like to be in the position that I would have to carry a child to term in my body. By your stance do you also believe someone who is not terminally ill and never has been can declare that someone who is cannot take their own life to end the pain and to hasten what is already an inevitable end to their life? Can someone who has never or can never experience what another person has or may have to endure be in a position legislate policy? Most polls indicate that women left on their own to decide on the issue would vote in favour of abortion. While the majority of men would not. In fact the division of men who are pro life over pro choice has a wider margin. That's alarming to think how many men would force a woman to keep a fetus if they could...especially when considering they don't have to carry the child. In light of these numbers you would think that you would support my view if ultimately all you wanted was for women to have a choice in what is done with their body. To disagree is just strengthening the oppositions argument and giving more voices to the pro life cause.

As far as contradictions? Again to look at your quote: "Who is best situated to determine whether or not a particular unborn human can be adequately supported? Certainly not any abortion opponent!"

Take that thought further...who is best situated? The mother or the father?

To medv4380, I did indeed use "child under construction" and "baby under construction" and I did not use "human under construction". It is well-known, after all, that the organism is human at every stage of development, so it would have been simply and stupidly IMPRECISE to have written what you falsely claimed I wrote. Meanwhile, a pregnant dog contains puppies under construction, a pregnant cat contains kittens under construction, and so on. I am being very consistent here.

The language is what we have available, in order to communicate. Scientists and mathematicians know full well how important it is to be precise. You might call it something like "splitting a definition down the middle", but if it increases clarity about the topic being discussed, why not? (Oh, because such clarity makes abortion opponents obvious losers in the debate? Tough!) I have backed-up, supported, what I wrote in an earlier comment ("their definitions are provably propagandistic"), which you challenged. And your mere complaint, in your last comment, is hardly a refutation! Nor have you written anything that qualifies as exposing something I wrote as a stupid lie.

It doesn't bother me a bit that 40% of the population is inadequately informed about the actual relevant facts, on the abortion topic. Note that 100% of Catholics were wrong, several centuries ago, when they claimed that the Earth was at the Center of Creation. Also note that they don't make that claim any more...education works (it just takes time)!

BTW, I need to reply to this that you previously wrote: "Something being legal or illegal has little to do with right or wrong." WHO DECIDES? You? Ancient greedy-for-power preachers? Today the culture decides, and modern cultures try to obtain the best information available, before making such a decision. And so it is now KNOWN that unborn humans are mere animal organisms. And killing animals has been culturally acceptable for a LOOOOONNNNG time.

To Racer_X, it is not necessary to experience pregnancy to be able to determine that various claims are obviously false. ONE such claim is to call an unborn human a "human being" --it is no more a human BEING than an ordinary radish plant is a "radish BEING". While the word "being" SOMETIMES refers to the simple existence of something-or-other, and in that case an ordinary rock could legitimately be called a "rock being", this is never done in casual conversation. Such conversations typically use "being" simply and ONLY as a synonym for "person". That's why, at a science-fiction convention, nobody blinks when talking about alien intelligent beings -but they still don't talk about "radish beings", unless some fictional scenario actually is about intelligent radish plants.

Meanwhile, under no REAL circumstance does an unborn human qualify as a "person" --it is strictly a mere animal organism. And so it is pure Propaganda, a distortion of the English Language, to call it a "human being", when the typical meaning of that phrase is "human person". As a double-check of the facts of this matter, when was the last time you referenced unborn humans as "fetus beings"? Because if they were actually people, that phrase would be accurate!

So, because it is possible to point out various FUNDAMENTAL flaws in anti-abortion arguments, regardless of experiencing pregnancy, I stand by what I previously wrote. And yes, abortion opponents are NOT situated such that they can determine, just by looking at a woman seeking an abortion, that she is able to adequately support a child if she instead didn't get an abortion. I meant exactly what I wrote; abortion opponents want to interfere with other people's lives, enslaving them to animals, regardless of the consequences (like a Malthusian Catastrophe resulting from overpopulation).

I am not pro-abortion, I am anti-anti-abortion; I am against those who would deny choice to women, and I'm willing and able to expose their nonsense.

elvroin_vonn_trazem, you used Child and Baby under construction, and if you wish to attempt to prove your absurd claims go ahead and write up a challenge if you dare. I think I've expose plenty of the "Stupid Lies" you put into your own mouth, and you're an exemplary example of the problem with the abortion debate in general on the Pro-Choice side. You're incapable of actually winning a debate outside of definition word play, and is why everything is split down the middle for the public. http://www.gallup.com... At over 40% they are hardly a small radical segment like flat earthers. Try and defend your Fallacy a different way.

And try to actually win for your side. Otherwise you'll just end up pushing people to their side.

To elvroin_vonn_trazem with all due respect: I'm sorry but I know of no man who has successfully conceived and carried to full term (in utero) another human being. Until that happens your argument is invalid. No man "understands enough about the subject to be able to contribute how idiotic are all anti- abortion arguments". Plainly said: until you can accurately attest to exactly what it means to carry another human being inside your body for 8-10 months, give birth and then decide on this little person's fate for the rest of it's life you not only lack the insight to judge the mother's decisions you lack the insight to weigh in on any decision that mother makes before she makes her own decision. Furthermore the following quote that YOU gave actually helps my previous point: "The existence of fetal resorption means one thing that drives at the heart of a significant number of anti-abortion arguments: It is perfectly natural for the unborn to be killed if conditions aren't adequate for supporting it. And growing humans happen to need more support --especially after birth-- than any other species, by a wide margin. Who is best situated to determine whether or not a particular unborn human can be adequately supported? Certainly not any abortion opponent!"

Did you read what you posted? The last sentence says "Certainly not any abortion opponent!" Are you against my comment but still pro abortion? I don't get it.